A scene from Amour, directed by Michael Haneke, which has been submitted to the Academy Awards. Photograph: Allstar/CANAL+/Sportsphoto Ltd

Academy Awards organisers have received submissions from a record 71 countries for this season's foreign-language prize.

This year's Oscar entries include Austria's Amour, from the director Michael Haneke, which won the top prize at last May's Cannes film festival and stars Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant as an elderly couple coping with the wife's worsening health. They also include the feature director David "Tosh" Gitonga's Nairobi Half Life, the first ever entry ever from Kenya.

Other foreign-language entries include the French hit The Intouchables, from the directors Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, and Sweden's The Hypnotist, from Lasse Hallstrom, who also directed The Cider House Rules. Another entry is Norway's Kon-Tiki from the directors Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg, which chronicles Thor Heyerdahl's Pacific Ocean expedition to prove that South Americans could have settled Polynesia. No Iranian film will be submitted in protest at the anti-Islam movie recently posted on YouTube.